Write On Radio Show day

Tomorrow is Write On Radio Show day - man a month rolls around quickly!

One of my highlights of this month was getting the opportunity to interview Diana Gabaldon while she was in town promoting her latest book An Echo in the Bone. Having been an avid reader of her Outlander series since she started producing them, it felt rather special to be able to meet her and have a wee chat.

One of the amusing things to come up in my researching the author before the interview was looking at some of the things on You Tube. There are interviews with Diana which are great, but there are also compilations of video made by fans with their casting picks if ever there was a movie made. It was interesting to hear Diana talking on the subject in her public talk. When asked who she'd pick as actors for a dramatisation of her works she couldn't, or wouldn't. She said every readers mental image of her characters is different, and to her the important thing about the actors wouldn't be their overall look, but whether they could become the characters, inhabit them and bring them alive.

I feel the same way about casting if ever there was a dramatisation of my Sam Shephard novels. I have a definite image of what she looks like in my head, but it is the skill of an actor in capturing her spirit which is important.

Anyhoo, here's the details on my interviewees for tomorrow's show which is broadcast live from noon til 1.00pm on Toroa Radio, 1575 kHz am in Dunedin, or live streamed from the Toroa Radio website.

Ian Chapman is a mild mannered university academic by day, and transforms into Dr Glam by night, ok, and by day too, if occasion demands. We talk about Glam rock, and about his recently released book Glory Days, which celebrates the 1970's as seem through the eyes of some of its prominent participants.






Diana Gabaldon is an American writer and Best-Selling author of the Outlander series of books which are a winning combination of historic fiction, modern day, science fiction, romance and adventure. Diana was recently in Dunedin promoting the seventh book in the series, An Echo in the Bone. We talked about the pleasures and challenges of writing such a sprawling saga that covers turbulent times in history from Culloden to the American Revolution.